July 9, 2010

This post could alternately be called "How to write a post in 5 minutes," because that's about how much time I have today, but I really wanted to share my favorite blog post of the week with you.

First, the food waste. It's embarrassing. It was chocolate, believe it or not. I buy chocolate at Trader Joe's, and some of it is better than others. If I don't like it that well and I've already bought some I like better, it tends to get left in the pantry. My intention is to use that inferior chocolate at a later date, for something like chocolate-dipped strawberries.

Cut to: my husband found some chocolate bars in the pantry with suspicious-looking flakes on them that he thought were bug eggs. I didn't think so, but we weren't willing to take a chance so we threw about 4 half-eaten bars of chocolate away. Oh, so sad. I was convinced I needed to toss them when I saw that the expiration date was in 2008. Oh dear.

As far as I know, chocolate can NOT be composted, so that was landfill trash. Why do I blog about this? Because wasting food wastes money, and it's bad for the environment as well. You can read more about it at Wasted Food and you can visit The Frugal Girl for her weekly roundup of bloggers who are watching their food waste.

FAVORITE BLOG POST OF THE WEEK: I'm really excited about this post from Penny at Penniless Parenting called "The Protein Myth." It's well-researched and packed with the facts about how you can get all the protein you need from non-meat sources. As anyone who is a vegan or vegetarian knows, the knee-jerk question you always hear is "but what about protein?" In my opinion, people should worry a lot less about getting enough protein and a lot more about eating fresh produce. It doesn't look like many Americans are lacking protein to me, but a lot of them do have diabetes. But enough of my rant! Check out the post, it's informative and inspiring! Thanks to Alea at Premeditated Leftovers for introducing me to Penny's blog.

5 comments:

Protein is a tough one as it is essential for building new body tissue, but most people vegetarian and vegan included would get a good amount from a normal diet. For the optimal amount however people should consume 1-2g of protein per kg of body weight which is heaps and pretty unachievable! Iron deficiency is more common in vegetarian and vegan diets as so many things inhibit the absorption of iron, it really needs to be monitored if not eating red meat We only consume red meat about once a fortnight and I definitely notice the difference. Good post!

Penny- Yes, people are so obsessed with protein. Thanks again for your detailed info.

Melanie- I think you have to think about it a bit more if you're 100 percent vegan, but I don't think going meatless once a week is going to give anyone an iron deficiency. I think the "once every two weeks" is a good plan for people who don't want to give up meat entirely.

Marathon Mama- Thanks so much for your kind words- I'm so happy my blog inspires you. And I'm glad to hear it's thought-provoking, and would consider that a compliment.

I try never to waste anything! Your freezer is your best friend. Your chocolate waste piqued my interest. Chocolate can be frozen well. If you don't like a certain bar, just wrap it in plastic and freeze it. If you need a bit of chocolate to melt, or shave on a dessert~~voila!

What IS The Compact?

About Me

On January 1st, 2009, I joined The Compact and pledged to Buy Nothing New for one year. It sounded like the perfect way to converge my desire to live on less money with my interest in living a simpler life and trying to lessen my carbon footprint. The experiment was so rewarding that I'm continuing with it indefinitely. This blog documents my journey in non-consumerism.